Page 56 of This Changes Everything

“I’m sorry to interrupt.” Rory didn’t break eye contact.

“No worries,” Ben responded.

“Ellie, I wanted to say goodbye. Can I talk to you for a minute?” Rory’s voice sounded pained.

Ben looked to me for my response. I nodded, and he gave my hand a small squeeze before gathering himself. He nodded toward Rory, then left us alone.

Chapter 20

NEW YORK 21 years old

I STAYED WHERE I WAS, AND RORY TOOK BEN’S PLACE BESIDE ME on the curb. I knew this moment like it had happened before.

“Are you okay?” Rory asked. I didn’t respond. He cleared his throat and kept his eyes on the ground. “I think Blair and Jacob are still staying until Wednesday. But I’m going to go. Cameron, too.” Rory’s breath was shaky. “The thing is, Kara told Cameron about Ben at Christmas. So I came to New York to get you back before it was too late. Not back to Vancouver. Just back to me. I wanted to tell you that I choose you and you choose me. And I wanted to be the one kissing you tonight . . .”

Rory closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

“I wanted to tell you that he could never know you like I do, or laugh with you like I do, or love you like I do. I wanted to say a lot of things.” Rory drew in a massive inhale, as if he were breathing directly into his soul, where our past haunted our present. “But then I got here.” He kept his eyes closed and shook his head. “We had a life together . . . Now it’s clear that what you need isn’t our life, it’s this one. I’m too late.” He opened his eyes and finally looked at me. Tears spilled down his cheeks. “I’m in the way.”

My heart fell. It tripped and stumbled in the moment, just like I had through life. Just like I had with Rory. I had to put the past behind me. He was saying goodbye. I had to, too.

“Do you remember that time on the golf course when we got caught in a storm?” I asked.

“Yeah . . .”

“Remember how we took off our shoes because we thought the metal spikes would attract the lightning? And we ran?”

Rory nodded.

“One in a million. That’s the odds of getting hit.” My voice trembled. “You and me . . . We didn’t get hit by lightning, but we sure got close.”

Rory and I looked at each other, painfully aware of how close we really had been to belonging to one another.

“I’m sorry I ran. I don’t know what I was so scared of . . . Next time I’ll keep my shoes on,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face.

Rory let out another slow, shaky breath before saying, “Me too.” He palmed his face, brushing away his tears, and nodded. “It’s time for me to go.”

Rory stood and walked toward the door to get his things. He gripped the doorframe and hesitated. I wondered if he was going to turn back around, or change his mind, or say goodbye, or give me one last kiss. And I knew, in that moment, he was wondering what I was going to do. For so many years we hadn’t known what to do, so for all those years we had done nothing. And that’s what we did now. Nothing.

Part II Everything After

Chapter 21

LAS VEGAS 29 years old

IT WAS ZOË’S THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY. ME, ZOË, KARA, HANNAH, and Maddy, the newest addition to our group and Zoë’s best friend from Boston College, were at a bar called Manor House in downtown Las Vegas. It was a fancy two-story cocktail bar with a rooftop dance floor. I genuinely had no idea how we’d ended up there, other than Zoë had made it happen. Zoë could make anything happen. She had become a concert producer in Los Angeles, and her job often brought her to Vegas. She knew and impressed a lot of people, and a lot of people wanted to know and impress her.

I started drinking in our penthouse suite on check-in. When the welcome channel on our TV flashed highlights from the Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament taking place in Vegas that same weekend, I had hightailed it for the nearest bottle of alcohol.

I saw Maddy, who was having her first weekend away since becoming a new mom, notice me go dead behind the eyes the moment Rory Campbell popped up on screen, fixing his glove while fist-bumping Steph Curry. I hadn’t seen Rory in person in years, and seeing him playing golf on TV always made me feel a little bit sick to my stomach.

At twenty-nine, Rory had only gotten sexier. His lean but muscular body was evident from the way his polo hugged his shoulders, and his ass was shockingly sculpted beneath his tighter-than-necessary pants. His unruly brown hair remained flawlessly unruly beneath a black Titleist hat, newly upgraded. His eyes were hidden beneath those goddamn Ray-Bans, now one of his many sponsors. His dimple had shape-shifted into a perfect crease against his scruffy almost-beard when he smiled. It was devastating to look at. Especially for a woman wearing a ratty, ten-year-old, homemade tank top that read “Canadian Women’s Drinking Team.”

Maddy drooled, saying, “I’m sorry . . . who is that?” while looking at Rory on the TV, and Hannah had to remove me from the room. The bottle of champagne was still shoved down my throat, and already half consumed.

I was miraculously able to forget that Rory was also in Vegas when we hit the Daylight Beach Club at Mandalay Bay. He didn’t come up once during our incredibly expensive sushi dinner. And even Kara didn’t bring him up when his face appeared on one of the many outdoor digital billboards put up by MGM, which was sponsoring the tournament.

While being bullied by too many club promoters, we tried three different bars before Zoë brought us to Manor House.